Bailing out the Evil Tech Bros
A lot of today’s discussion is about whether Silicon Valley Bank DESERVED a bailout. These days… their customers are the most popular villain in the movies. The diabolical tech bro talks about changing the world and disrupting it while he jets around the world with girls on his arm and cocaine up his nose.
Tech bros have replaced Middle East Terrorists as movie bad guys. And the idea that they’d get bailed out by the government is not a good look. There are a lot of complaints that SVB - the bank deserves to pay for its stupidity.
And best I can see it is. Its executives are all fired. The stockholders who bought shares of SVB… get nothing. That stock is worth zero. You made a bad investment.
As for the bailout of the bank’s customers. President Biden started the day reassuring Americans.
Whether his actions are good or bad… There was a fear over the weekend… that millions of Americans would pull their money out of smaller banks… fear they too might collapse… Suddenly your ATM card… your Venmo… your debit and credit cards don’t work.
And when this happens…as we saw Friday… it happens quickly. So action was needed fast over the weekend. Whether it was the right action.... whether tech disrupters will be humbled by their brief brush with bankruptcy…. time will tell.